What Ketotard Chronicles Is, and Is Not

First of all, my motivation for starting this group was—rather than be some advocate for a particular way of doing diets that produce ketones as by-products of resultant fat loss—I wanted to shine a spotlight on the general retardedness, purveying of dietary magic, and the shysters who make money off it. And name names.

On the other side, I want to offer sane and sensible alternatives in the realm of ketogenic dieting (all truly successful diets are both high fat and ketogenic if you do them right). But the rub in this second part is that because of where I come from in the dietary blogging spectrum, people seem to think I’m a certain way. Well, I am, personally, at least omnivorous generally, but it’s not how I run Ketotard Chronicles.

…Something weird happened over the last couple of days. Beatrice and I were away for some errands and a post submission came up and I had Bea approve it. Someone had the audacity to post this picture of a cake made of fruit, along with an explanation of how she’d posted it in some sugar addiction group as an alternative to the Sugary Usual Suspects.

She got banned over there and excoriated in my group, and I think the why of the latter is because I’m currently under yet another Facebook suspension and can’t post anything towards guiding the conversation.

By the time we got home an hour later, there were already 100 comments on her post and then, within another hour, there were 100 more. A hot topic; and I was trying to keep abreast and having designs for a blog post when she deleted the whole thing. I’ll say that I don’t like members doing that. I select less than half of the posts submitted to the group in order to try to keep signal high and noise low. If you exercise your right to blow up a post because comments have not gone your way, understand I also have the right to not publish your posts. ‘Nuff said.

But this was so weird. I’m not going to call out names but there was this strange Dunning-Kruger undercurrent, somehow knowing that somehow, this is a Low-Carb promoting site for Diabetics and fruit is just off topic, meng!

But it’s not. In fact, I so support what the original poster was up to that I contacted her and asked her to repost it. And she gets excoriated again, and on meaningless distinctions like you already posted this. It’s a shameful dogpile—over fucking FRUIT! This does not sit well with me in the slightest.

What Ketotard Chronicles Is

Its primary mission is to mock and ridicule Keto bullshit and name names of Ketoshysters and Ketotards

It holds caloric restriction by whatever form (LC, HC, Raw Vegan, CRON, LF, IF, etc.) as the base “substrate” for achieving ketosis and not macronutrient ratios

It holds that after calories, protein is the next most important thing and minimally they should be adequate (20-25% of calories) and optimally, over 30% of calories.

Fat and carbohydrate are the least of concerns. If caloric deficit is chronic, protein is adequate to optimal, then fat and carb levels don’t matter and your preference trumps all opinion

In terms of the context of ketosis, it’s agnostic in terms of dietary style, except that caloric restriction and adequate protein are the two musts. BOTH fat and carbs are your levers, depending on how you care to do it

What Ketotard Chronicles Is Not

A diabetes support group (and this is important…I’m going to start deleting comments that begin “but I’m diabetic and….”)

A shunner of any whole foods, including fruit, tubers, and legumes. In fact, they are welcome to be promoted

A shill for LC of any variety—though LC is highly respected as a certain enhancement to a calorically restricted Keto plan

Larcenous

…On that last point, larceny, one of my bigs is the abject looting by the LC community over the term ketosis when rightfully, it’s a term that applies to various levels of starvation and the adaptations we’ve wonderfully evolved to survive it, in its spite. LC has done much damage over decades co-opting the term and in many respects, tarnishing and obfuscating it.

Ketosis is primarily achieved by a chronic, consistent daily caloric deficit (>500), no matter what the fuck you’re eating. Are some ways better than others? Certainly, but it’s all over the map and the problem with dietary cheer leading is that it becomes a big homecoming game with girls in short skirts and pom poms and then everyone loses their minds. I will be equally happy with someone doing raw vegan for a limited period in order to get their results as I will be with a zero carber getting theirs. The results are driven by caloric restriction and adequate protein. Final. End of story; and I don’t care from what fucking realm you emanate, but if you don’t have those fundamentals in place you’re a fucking retard and it’s not going to go well for you in my group unless you keep your retard-mouth shut.

Once the RESULTS are achieved and the ketones you’ve measured testify to the fact that you oxidized fat over time, then what? Well, then you have to eat at average maintenance, right? Of course.

Are you going to be in ketosis?

Fuck no, you are not: not chronically. You’ll have to content yourself with intermittent fasting bouts or periodic potato hacks to revisit ketosis. Don’t be a fucking ketotard. Ketosis is not Mr. Coffee, where you get the machine for cheap but then buy filters over a lifetime.

If you are eating to caloric balance on average and insist on being in ketosis, then you are not in ketosis. You are then adopting Fauxtosis and you’re being fucking stupid.

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Comments

“Fat and carbohydrate are the least of concerns. If caloric deficit is chronic, protein is adequate to optimal, then fat and calories don’t matter and your preference trumps all opinion”

Is that supposed to read: “Fat and carbohydrate are the least of concerns. If caloric deficit is chronic, protein is adequate to optimal, then fat and *carbohydrates* don’t matter and your preference trumps all opinion”?

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Seemingly every diet group is like this. “We are SOOO much smarter than that other group but WTF HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT [insert criticism from ignorance].”

LF was so mocking of the high fat SAD then freaked out over whole foods with fat.
LC was so mocking of the high carb SAD then ridiculed people eating things like fruit.
Paleo was so mocking of everything cave man wouldn’t have while eating all sorts of processed PaleoTM foods and mocking whole foods for things as stupid as modern cultivation practices (FRUIT IS SUPPOSED TO BE SEEDS AND RIND).
Vegans . . .

This is more of that – perhaps there is a distinction in that this group is founded on the premise of mocking another group. But it seems to me that the more mocking members of a group are, the harder they ‘tard when they’re wrong.

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Chris, excuse me if I’m being stupid, but your comment, “Also I think your endorsement of Ketogains has people still thinking that there is some magic to ketosis”, has me confused. Surely the whole point is that if you’re in a calorie deficit (however you choose to achieve that) you will be ‘in ketosis’, i.e. burning fat for fuel. So in that sense there is ‘magic’ to ketosis. Or did you mean that endorsing ketogains has people thinking there is some magic to a low-carb diet? We had this discussion on Desiree’s thread, I seem to recall, and it confused me then also.

Skyler – it is true that there is a “sane approach”, i.e. one that recognises the primacy of a calorie deficit and the advantages of sufficient protein. However I’m not personally clear about what the advantages of a “keto diet” are as such unless you are epileptic.

Chris, it’s been demonstrated that being in ketosis blunts postprandial ghrelin response, offering an additional appetite suppressant effect for some individuals. Of course, there are obese ketogenic folks, so clearly you can drink cream and get past that. However, if you’re somebody who finds that ketosis produces appetite suppression in the face of a caloric reduction, why not leverage that?

Of course, ultraendurance athletes find value from spending some of their year in ketosis, but I’m not sure that’s what what you meant with your epilepsy comment.

But you’re talking about Fauxtosis, Skyler, tweaking macros to produce ketones while eating at energy balance on average.

And that’s exactly what the epilepsy diet is designed to do.

I certainly don’t begrudge any benefits one can get by any strange, clinical-like intervention but I hold that’s what it is.

The conflation is in thinking the Epileptic diet is about weight or fat loss when in fact, it’s specifically designed to prevent that while producing ketones anyway where normally and physiologically, they are a product of fat loss, ie, sustained caldef.

Thanks Skyler- that is interesting re appetite suppression. Keto diets in ultraendurance athletes seem like something of a fad at the moment – I’m not clear how many of the elite actually use them. Calorie deficit is the important thing always. Adequate protein helps for various reasons. Then as Richard says all effective diets are ketogenic and high fat even if low fat in terms of calorie intake. Ketogains still seems to see some overall advantage in being low carb (e.g. don’t eat beans, fruit, bread or pasta etc ketogains.com/wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/ketogains.com//2016/06/ketogains-food-pyramid//_index.h…) Yes they recognise the need for calorie control but carbs are still evil in that world.

There are ultra athletes who are low carb year round, and there are others who use it as a tool for mitochondrial upregulation (which only takes about a month for the bulk of the improvement, BTW) and carb sparing during their events. They’re certainly going slow enough to run only on fat, though YMMV. Again, a tool.

It’s all a tool: if lowering carbs makes it easier to stay in a deficit, by all means. If lowering fat makes it easier for you, by all means. Studies, and not just recently, have demonstrated that fasting insulin and/or blood sugar are good predictors of which reduction you’ll likely respond to best. Examples:

All these fucks never hesitate to post any study that shows HFLC athleticism is not quite as sorely fucked as you would imagine if you had a brain.

“Since you don’t have a brain, this study shows how great HFLC is.”

But here’s the deal. I never need to argue the science with them, because they’ve exposed themselves as economic ignoramuses.

If Keto was the way to win athletic competitions at the high money and endorsement levels, it would be just as solid as CICO, high protein and ultra low fat is in the body building world (and both ways, too).

One reason I endorse Ketogains is because I see it as simply a style variation on Berhan’s Leangains. Now, I think Martin crafts a macro plan based on a client’s dietary paradigm, probably the idea that they’ll better adhere the fewer things they need to change. But, the fundamentals have to be there.

So, Leangains is caldef, high protein on rest days, hyper protein on three train days. But, for me, he had it LC on the rest days (30g, higher fat) and roughly 120-130g carb on the three train days (lower fat).

Of course, both LG and KG advocate serious weight lifting for the training (Martin also likes a session of high-intensity interval sprints on the stationary bike….not sure about KG in this regard).

So, the primary difference between the two is that KG is simply LC all the time, without the cycling of carb. I believe it’s a non-essential thing, either way. Perhaps at the margins, one is a little better than the other, and even that depends on the individual because adherence is really the biggest deal of all. You’re nowhere unless you follow the plan in the first place.

Maybe I should have been clearer. Fat loss can occur simply by the acetyl-Co-A route in calorie deficit, on ANY macros. People lose fat on HCLF, but not with any appreciable ketone generation because their diet does not make them hypoglycemic. There is only significant ketone production when the liver gets involved in metabolism, which is promoted by low carb dieting.

I’m still thinking about ketosis on the potato hack, which should supply ample blood glucose. Maybe it’s a low glycemic effect, due to either ultra low calories or resistant starch.

And then again maybe I’m all wet. Under fasted conditions bloodstream glucose is depressed, and if fat loss occurs mainly during fasting (at night while you’re asleep, eg) the metabolism might move to the liver with ketone production. Do you pee purple in the morning on a calorie deficit?

Here’s a summary of metabolism on a calorie balance, vs extended fasting. Overnight fasts – at calorie balance – draw down liver glycogen stores to replenish blood glucose. It’s only with extended fasting that the liver switches to stored fat and protein for fuel. But there’s nothing here about the effect of chronic calorie deficit on fat metabolism.

Breath acetone looks like the most sensitive measurement for fat metabolism, under a wide range of conditions. It doubles while you sleep, and doubles after exercise. It rises during weight loss dieting. It falls when you eat a high calorie meal. It is lowered by obesity.

Is elevated BrAce the same thing as ketosis? I don’t think so. But unless it is elevated you are not burning fat, whatever diet you are on.

I think all we can say about this is that having LC as part of your caldef plan is a quicker and surer way into elevated ketone production than the same caldef with lots of carbs.

But when you have a bunch of people reporting the same thing at the same time as we had way back in potato hacking days, and it’s like 85% carb, then it falsifies the idea that ketosis can only come from carb restriction as an essential.

And of course, it is “carb restriction” as well, since everything is being restricted to maintain caldef. What we don’t know is what the variables are per individual, whether it’s average 500 or 800, for three days consistent or four, etc., or how it would compare with the same caldef in that individual on LC, and even then, HFLC or HPLC, or balanced fat and protein LC.

The term “ketosis” comes with a lot of baggage. When Keys did the starvation study the diet was probably 90-100% starchy carbs (Euro-refugee bread and potatoes), but because of the ultra low calories it was a ketosis diet.

Today people don’t get that. Ketosis means a purple ketostick. If you want that on a high carb diet that means starvation, or a high enough calorie deficit to be close to that. A high fat diet is the sloucher’s way to get a purple stick.

I think you have to measure success a different way. I don’t know if BrAce is it, but it looks a lot better than the purple pee method.

Figure 1 contrasts the basal state of 1-2 ppm breath acetone with fasting and two types of ketosis above that. The author says that anything above 2 ppm breath acetone would qualify as the start of the ketosis/fasting effect. He ranges it up to 400 ppm for the epilepsy diet, which overlaps ketoacidosis. Ketosticks would be a poor way of measuring the lower end 2 ppm ketosis.

You might want to borrow Figure 1 for the ketotard group. Ketosis is a spectrum not a distinct transition measured by a purple stick.

Weight loss requires commitment to a SINGLE plan that gets calorie deficits, by any means fair or foul. Gurus like jimmy are avatars for some people. Unfortunately being obese doesn’t make him a very good avatar. Except for a class of people out to prove they can beat him at his own game.

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….if you do them right. That’s the heart of the problem with whichever “diet” you follow. We all give our own interpretation on the diet, and thus often leads to failure. Take the Atkins diet. Most people interpreted it to be a free for all on all things fat and animal. Most people seemed to overlook the fact that we were supposed to about 14 ounces (375 grams) of SALAD greens every day.

In Paleo bacon is THE thing to eat. But was a cured product around during Palaeolithic times? I think not.

All the groups seem to reach a religious ferver, and you become ostracised if you don’t follow the doctrine religiously.

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All weight loss plans that work need conformity for an extended period, 3-6 months at a minimum. Whether conformity is achieved by group-think or individual acts of piety is not important. Once you get past obesity you’re in a pitched battle with your body’s old weight setpoint….any means fair or foul…

In consistent caldef it’s not going to matter. Perhaps the eating widow deal confers some advantages but if eating frequently is what one needs to do to stay in caldef then hook yourself up to an IV drip for all I care.

In energy balance I’m confident that going a minimum of 12 hours daily without energy intake is a good policy.

I agree Richard. In my experience, some magic happens when I don’t eat for extended periods of time vs total calorie deficit while eating throughout the day. I just feel better. As I’ve said before, I think eating is inflammatory. I also find if I eat too little for extended periods of time or drop too much weight, I then can take in way more calories for 2 weeks or more without gaining any weight. When I do though, my aches and pains come back. Probably the inflammatory aspect of eating.

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It’s going to take some number of consistent days, per individual and also the amount of caldef will be per individual. But yea, way back, people doing the potato hack, potatoes only, found themselves in ketosis because even ad libitum they could not eat enough to sustain body weight and the loss was rapid enough to show measurable elevated ketones.

This only makes sense. If you are shedding fat at a rapid pace, say >1 pound per week rate, you are producing elevated ketones, which is ketosis.

Here is something to share on the Ketotard Chronicles (I don’t have a Facebook presences at the moment). It relates to a recent blog post by Dr. Eades on the Protein Power site (August 21: Kevin Hall, Kickstarter, and catching up).

In the post, he notes that Kevin Hall has developed a model for predicting weight loss based on calorie intake and activity level. Oddly enough, carbohydrate intake is one of the inputs. And Eades has observed that if you vary the carbohydrate input at a constant calorie level, then you lose more weight with a low carbohydrate diet. He illustrates with predictions for a hypothetical male eating 10% and 50% carbohydrate diets. In his example the low carb diet caused 4 lbs greater weight loss (8 lbs lost versus 12). Although Eades admits that he doesn’t really understand what is going on, this outcome clearly demonstrates that Kevin Hall is wrong about low carb diets. By his own model, low carb diets are superior for weight loss. How embarrassing for poor Kevin Hall…

In looking at Eades blog post about Hall’s model, my curiosity was immediately piqued by the fact the carbohydrate was an input, but not protein. Surely the thermic effect of protein should warrant separate consideration. So I began looking for details on how this model worked. In about 5 minutes, I found some of that here:

“To accurately simulate the early changes of body weight that often occur within the first few weeks of a reduced energy diet, 1 we developed a simple model of how diet changes effect body glycogen and body fluids. A more comprehensive computational model accounting for body water changes and the influence of various metabolic fluxes on glycogen content was previously developed by our research group 2, 3 and here we present a simplified model of these effects.

Glycogen is the body’s storage form of carbohydrate every gram of glycogen is stored with ~2.7 grams of water. 4 At baseline, the body contains ~500 g of glycogen and its dynamics are a complex function of various metabolic fluxes such as gluconeogenesis and carbohydrate oxidation. However, a primary determinant of the glycogen content is the dietary carbohydrate intake rate and we propose the following simple approximate model for glycogen dynamics: (equation omitted for formatting difficulties).”

So he uses the carbohydrate content to calculate early stage changes in weight loss due to glycogen depletion and water balance. Now I go back to Eades two graphs. After the first two weeks, both predictions are straight lines, with the following slopes:

10% carbohydrate diet ~ 1.25 lbs/10 days

50% carbohydrate diet ~ 1.25 lbs/10 days

So, virtually the same rate of weight loss on each diet, after the first couple of weeks.

Now look at the first 5 days:

10% carbohydrate ~ 5.5 lbs lost

50% carbohydrate ~ 2.25 lbs lost

So 3.25 lbs of the 4 lb advantage to the low carbohydrate diet occurs in the first 5 days. Clearly, it is from water loss predicted from glycogen depletion.

In hindsight, I should not have needed Kevin Hall’s model equations to see this. Clearly the difference between the two diet predictions lies mostly in what happens during the first week. Most surely Eades should understand the water losses associated with a switch to a low carb diet. So is this a great example of confirmation bias in action?

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Thanks. I know you haven’t talked about politics lately, but it’s been interesting to see “deplorables” from Texas selflessly rescue people while the Berkeley “progressives” attack peaceful protesters and burn things down:

On the other hand, they just hate federal regulations in Houston, hence they build the nations 4th largest city on a massive flood plain. Brilliant. Now the federal govt. has to bail out the dumbfucks. Do they now want the feds to help them? You betcha. Watch them all line up for the money and help.

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I'm Richard Nikoley. Free the Animal began in 2003, and as of 2017, contains over 4,500 posts and 100,000 comments from readers. I cover a lot of ground, blogging what I wish...from health, diet, and lifestyle to philosophy, politics, social issues, and cryptocurrency. I celebrate the audacity and hubris to live by your own exclusive authority and take your own chances in life. [Read more...]

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